We already knew in advance that the raining was coming, but at the sound of the clock alarm the “early movers” looked immediately outside the window to qualify the entity of the expected rain.
It was not very bad, but not so good. The perfect condition to arise millions of doubts regarding how to get dress, also because the first part of the track was characterized by a moderate uphill.
Condition able to generate the classic situation where everybody asks to each other how they get dress. In some moment you feel the intention to discover some unexpected secret by
your friend, without knowing that he/her is playing exactly the same game. We left the hotel after a warm hug to Alberto, Marco (Pedale Veneziano), Luca and (another) Marco. For this year their experience with RWU is over but they are already thinking of what may happen next year.
We immediately experienced that the initial uphill was not so “moderate” and the rain equipment produced an internal environment around our body with the same level of humidity existing externally, under the rain.
At the top of the uphill we waited the last riders to reunited all the group and start riding together again with the happy news that the rain was gone.We rode throughout Val Venosta with the sound of the river and the amazing variability of colors of leaves on the trees and fell on the road. A magic environment able to kindly promote a different mood in our ride. Everybody was more concentrated in his/her own toughs and the isolated chat were almost whispered in the full respect of the amazing environment around us.
This peaceful context created a kind of additional harmony in the group that we felt that after three days of riding together we now naturally found the right speed and the way to proceed together.
A very original shop interrupted our thoughts and forced us to a spontaneous stop. Along the bike path and in the middle of an apple plantation we found an unattended cart with different kind of apples and a large variety of apple juices. Simple pieces of cardboard indicated the prices of the different choices and a box was there to collected the required money.
We bought a variety of apple juices and apples, refilling our bodies of this tasteful energy at “km 0”.
We rode close to the beautiful castle of Castelbello and then after a while we stopped a minute in front of the commemorative plaque in Laces, just in the place where 12 persons died in aprile 2010, when a landslide due to an apple plantation over irrigated invested a train. It represents a clear signal of how the nature is delicate and deserve our respect and it is inevitable to think at the parallel of climate change and at the general landslide that we are generating due to the over emissions of greenhouse gas.
But it was already time to take our bike and ride in the direction of S. Valentino alla Muta, knowing that before arriving we had to go through the last challenge: the Resia uphill was waiting for us!
In this case we decided to bend the rules, in fact, we all agreed to ride in the traffic road instead of the bike path because it was very steep.
When you ride a bicycle on mountain you should know that is the slope of the road that decides the speed and if you want to find a relation with the hill you have to follow its suggestion.
As a consequence all the riders pedalling along the road searching for their own speed and the group turned into a sum of single riders even more distant from each others. This is still more magic when you ride in the mid of the cloud covering the mountain that is challenging you. We passed across the cloud on the top when we discovered a shy sun waiting for us. But it was in bad company of a contrary wind able to generate a nostalgia for the previous hill condition.
At the end everybody won their personal challenge with the mountain and we met together at the final destination where we could enjoy a deserved beer and had dinner together after only 75 km but around 1.300 m of hill with our bikes and luggages.
